Honey Badgers: Masters of Mayhem Natural World

It's the toughest vehicle in the South African Army.

20 tonnes of thick-skinned, all-terrain, fighting machine.

And it's named after a badger.

Meet the ratel, better known as the honey badger.

A honey badger is a fighter. He goes and he goes and he goes.

If I had to use one word it would be tenacious.

HONEY BADGER SNARLS

Heavy claws, strong jaws, big teeth.

For such a small animal, they really do pack a punch.

There's nothing... nothing that he's scared of.

According to the Guinness Book of Records,

it is the world's most fearless animal.

They do have big attitudes.

But does the Honey Badger really deserve its ferocious tag?

Or is the hype bigger than its bite?

In South Africa's Limpopo Province, zoologist Low de Vries

is on the trail of a pint-sized animal with a massive reputation.

I've been fascinated by these guys from a very young age.

From eight, nine years old.

In Afrikaans we say, 'So taai as a ratel',

which means, 'As tough as a honey badger'.

That's what I love. I love that attitude.

Low is keen to get beyond the legend

and find out what the honey badger is really like.

For a start, it isn't really a badger at all.

Built for strength and stamina rather than speed,

it's more like a souped-up weasel.

Though reasonably common,

honey badgers are mostly nocturnal and rarely seen.

They're still relatively unknown to science.

Even their special ability to sleep off snake bites and wake up unharmed

remains a mystery.

Up to a quarter of their diet is made up of venomous snakes.

And we don't know why the young stay with their mothers for so long -

nearly twice as long as true badgers.

But it's tales of the honey badger's sheer audacity

that have become the stuff of legend.

There's all these myths about them. How many of those are true?

Following a tip off, Low and his field assistant Becky are heading

to a safari lodge where these normally elusive animals are

reported to be turning up every night.

Tucked away on the outskirts of Kruger National Park,

the lodge could be the perfect place

for Low to set up a new research project.

Honey badgers are scavengers as well as hunters.

At the safari lodge, they've learnt that there's a regular supply

of leftovers at the rubbish dump.

According to maintenance manager Alfred,

the dump has become a magnet

not just for badgers but for other animals too.

-Oh, with hyena?

-Yah.

-Have you seen them fight?

-Yah.

What happens when they fight?

So they go underneath the legs and bite them from behind.

It might not be pretty, but the rubbish dump offers Low

the perfect opportunity

to see where honey badgers rank in the pecking order.

This is where you dump the rubbish?

Can a badger, as Alfred claims,

actually see off an animal five times its own weight?

From which direction do they normally come?

What time do they normally come in?

OK.

Thank you very much, Alfred. Appreciate it.

Low will be back at dusk to see for himself

if the honey badger really is top dog.

Though badgers are tolerated at the lodge,

they can be a persistent problem for local farmers.

I'm trying to make a living out of free-range pigs.

Around me is the big five but my problem is not the big five.

The real problem is the honey badger.

That's the big problem.

As well as raiding his pig food,

badgers have attacked and even killed his dogs.

If you push him in a corner, then he will go for you.

He'll go for your balls

and he'll get all your balls out, one time, as quick as that.

A week ago I catch two on one night.

They do a lot of damage.

Some farmers shoot the badgers.

This one's lucky to be getting a second chance.

Hello, hello.

The farmer has called in Brian Jones,

a wildlife conservationist with a soft spot for honey badgers.

It's wonderful that you're prepared to save animals like this.

They're after the food of my pigs.

OK, open it.

Brian looks after all kinds of unwanted animals

but despite its rough reputation, the honey badger is his favourite.

He's rescued around 50 so far.

OK, Brian, thank you very much. Bai danke. Go well.

The badger will be set free later,

as far from the farmer as possible.

They do get hurt in their traps.

If we see it's quite serious, we will treat them accordingly.

When that's healed, we let them go again.

Hopefully they don't go back to that man

because he might decide to start killing them.

Brian is heading back to base,

to the place that's been his home for the last 22 years.

Set in its own 500 hectare game reserve,

Moholoholo is a privately run animal rehabilitation centre.

As well as providing a temporary refuge for injured wildlife,

it also houses a few longer-term residents

including a honey badger, Stoffel,

and his girlfriend Hammy.

I've had in my house hippo, rhino,

brown hyena, spotted hyena,

leopards, cheetah, lion - I've had the whole lot,

but the honey badger, there's nothing near the honey badger.

The first badger I took in was Stoffel.

He caused chaos in the house. He damaged everything.

I mean, he'd come and break through the window,

go to the kitchen...

..knock the dog biscuits over, go to the fridge, lie on his back,

kick the fridge open,

go and smell what's on the menu today...

..get the frozen bacon, sit on his back and eat it.

And you don't dare stop him. You just let him do what he wants.

Stoffel! Stoffel!

Come on, let's go!

I don't believe it.

Stoffel came here 20 years ago a someone else's unwanted pet

and is too tame ever to be released into the wild.

Though happy at first to look after him, Brian soon

discovered that the badger was a menace to his other animals.

It doesn't matter how big or small, he attacked it.

Nothing was safe from him.

He grabbed the rhino from underneath and wouldn't let go.

-And the rhino...

-MIMICS RHINO IN DISTRESS

He grabbed one of my tawny eagles. He killed the servals.

He wiped out 30, 40 guinea pigs, one shot.

He was extremely destructive.

When he flies into you it's not a joke.

He rips you to pieces.

Stoffel was becoming the pet from hell.

Stoffel, come on, my boy. Stoffel.

Alas, for Brian, this was just the start of a long

and challenging relationship.

Honey badgers, as their name suggests, are fond of honey.

But the mayhem they cause trying to get it makes them

a scourge to beekeepers.

I've spoken to some of the beekeepers in this area

who've lost up to 60 hives in one night.

If you consider that a beehive costs about 1,000 rand

and takes about two or three years to develop into a production colony,

you can see what the loss is - it's huge.

On the other hand, it takes guts to face an angry swarm.

Badgers that get it wrong have been stung to death.

It's the protein-rich grubs they're after

as much as the honey.

I've seen some hives where the badger's actually got in

from the side and chewed through this 22mm wood.

22 mill is about that thick.

Solid pine. You know, it's ripped apart.

Decimation. Badger won't stop at anything.

Sadly, badgers that raid too often risk being poisoned.

Guy Stubbs wants to protect honey badgers

from the wrath of his fellow beekeepers

by developing a cheap but effective badger-proof hive.

He's come to the rehab centre

where he's keen to try out his approach on some real badgers.

Phase one is all about watching and learning.

Jan, please release the badgers.

Enter test badger Stoffel...

..and his apprentice Hammy.

Badgers are adept at scaling trees in the wild

but Guy thinks they'll struggle to reach the hive

if there's no bark to grip onto.

OK, you can actually see he's just using one claw at a time

and he's hooking his claw into any little crevice and hole

that he can find, and then he pulls his whole body up.

So, it's showing incredible strength.

BADGER PANTS

Can you hear that panting?

It sounds like it's a lot of effort for him.

Through sheer determination,

Stoffel eventually gets within range.

Look at the way he's grabbing on to that plastic...

..and is actually ripping pieces of it off.

The sweet taste of success.

With all his footholds figured out,

Stoffel is soon back up to finish the job.

A few painful stings is a small price to pay.

One honey badger was found alive with well over 300 stings.

So by just having it off the ground in a tree,

isn't a guarantee for protecting your hive.

Armed with valuable first-hand observations,

Guy is now ready to go and design

his badger-saving badger-proof hive.

At a game lodge near Kruger National Park, zoologist Low de Vries

has a ring-side seat at the rubbish dump.

He's hoping to see for himself if the honey badger lives up to

its ferocious billing.

There's no mistaking a honey badger.

It wears a bold black and-white coat and moves with a confident trot.

Like a skunk, its vibrant markings send a warning.

"Mess with me at your peril."

The two badgers certainly don't appear put off by Low's presence.

Pairs of badgers were once thought to be couples,

but, in fact, badger pups stick with their mums for up to two years

and it can be hard to tell one from the other.

The long childhood suggests the pup has a lot to learn

before it can survive on its own.

This one is busy mastering the art of bin-raiding.

LOW LAUGHS

The greedy badgers won't have the place to themselves for long

and they seem to know it.

A porcupine is the next to pitch up.

Along with the jackals, they hang around

and wait for the badger's discarded scraps.

BADGER SNARLS

Venture too close and it becomes clear who's boss.

Even the civet, a larger carnivore, knows to steer clear.

BADGER GROWLS

For Low, this is a rare opportunity to watch wild honey badgers -

an opportunity he's waited a long time for.

I'm noticing the incredible number of sounds these guys are making.

Chattering and growling at each other.

Chirping away, kind of like a contact call.

At times, they almost sound like jackals.

They're not bothered by my presence.

I've been obsessed with these animals for so many years.

Honey badgers normally forage alone

but news of the dump appears to have spread.

BADGERS GRUNT

With fresh arrivals, there are soon more badgers than bins.

It's a recipe for some rowdy squabbling.

BADGER GROWLS

Over at the lodge, another gang of gatecrashers is piling in.

Remote cameras reveal them making a beeline for the kitchen.

The masters of mayhem have arrived.

Back at the bins, things have taken a serious turn.

With jaws nearly twice as strong as a lion's,

a spotted hyena could crush a badger with a single bite.

BADGER SNARLS

It's backing off.

The cause of the hyena's hasty retreat

soon becomes suffocatingly apparent.

Oh, my word.

That's horrible.

One of the badgers, it seems, has deployed a concealed weapon.

Oh, that's bad.

Fluid ejected from the badger's anal pouch

can be smelt from 40m away.

Uh, that's truly awful.

This actually makes your eyes water.

I've no idea how they live with themselves.

At the rehab centre,

Brian Jones was soon learning from his pet badger Stoffel

that the animal's reputation for bravery was no myth.

One day, the staff call me, "Brian, quickly!

"Stoffel's got in with the big lions!"

He dug underneath the electric fence...

and went in to the lions to fight them, on purpose.

So my staff took meat

and just chucked it over to get the lions' attraction on the meat.

Meantime the honey badger wouldn't let them settle down.

He was going for their private parts at the back.

And he was chasing this big male lion around the camp - it was hilarious.

Here he is after this big lion! And eventually the lion

would turn around and grab him, but because the skin's loose

he'd swing in his skin, the honey badger, and bite the lion on the face.

So in the end the lion's bleeding down the face,

the honey badger walking big style - and he won the first round.

Ha! They were scared of him.

In one incident in the wild,

honey badgers are reported to have chased seven lions from their kill.

For Stoffel, though - fighting alone - round two was a disaster.

He did it again. But this time he didn't get off so well.

They pulverised him a bit.

He was in hospital two-and-a-half months.

Though Stoffel survived, honey badgers are not invincible.

Despite their almost heroic courage,

they are sometimes mauled to death by big cats.

After his close encounter with badgers at the dump,

Low is keen to get deeper into their world.

The whole question of why pups hang around

with their mothers for so long is intriguing him.

'Local tracker Enoch says he's spotted a mother and baby

'using an old termite mound as a den, less than a mile from camp.

'It could be the breakthrough that Low needs.

'Badgers can move over 20 miles a night.

'But if there's one badger that's likely to stay put,

'it's a nursing mother near a regular source of food.'

So is this the hole where you saw the honey badger with a pup?

Yeah. This is the one.

They were milling around on top of this termite mound.

You can see these tracks here.

It shows that they're still using it.

'Low decides to put the burrow under surveillance.

'With a bit of luck, the mother and pup will give him a unique window

'into the normally hidden world of badger parenting.'

After Stoffel's severe mauling by the lions,

Brian knew that he HAD to get his badger under control.

His solution was a brand-new pen,

and the introduction of Hammy,

to help him work off steam.

Far from settling down, though, the canoodling couple soon proved

that honey badgers are not just fearless, but astonishingly clever.

We started off with a mesh-type fence, but it didn't work.

Stoffel soon devised a plan for opening up the gate,

which has got two bolts. He would get the female to go up.

She would go up, open the first gate, he'd hold the gate

and say, "Woman, get up! I'm pulling open, you open up."

She goes up to the top, pulls the second one out...

..and then he pulls it open,

he waits for her to get down, and they escape together.

The escape was no fluke.

Considering their small size, honey badgers have remarkably big brains.

Their intelligence is just beyond anything.

Whatever Brian did to keep him IN,

Stoffel was hell bent on getting OUT.

In the end - and at great expense - Brian had no choice

but to build his own "Badger Alcatraz".

I said, "Stoffel, the days of your escape are over, buddy."

That night they called me.

"Brian, Stoffel's OUT!" I said, "It's impossible!"

But we had trees in here.

And he'd climb up the trees and lean over onto the wall and he was out.

So we cut all the branches out of the trees in here,

and left the trees in the middle.

Then he dug up the rocks and he'd roll them

with his back feet to the wall, until he'd piled them up high enough.

And then he'd get out - so we took all the rocks away.

This was like a game for Stoffel.

Every time I devised some plan, it was like a game for him

to work out how could he get over this.

SMASH!

One o'clock in the morning, my wife me, "Brian! Brian!

"someone's in the house."

She said, "I heard a window break."

So we freeze.

Oh, my! Expecting burglars!

Stoffel had my bedroom door, trying to get through my bedroom door!

He made himself a mud ball, and he pats it to make it bigger!

and he rolled it, and he got up like that.

People have said, "Did you train it?" I said, "Train it?! Not at all!"

He'd outwit us each time, with HIS schemes.

Stoffel!

I remember one day, keeper left a rake in Stoffel's enclosure.

He scratched himself, lies on his side. Now he's thinking.

Computer's working.

Take the rake, put it on his back,

put it against the wall...

..climb out, and off he goes.

Stoffel!

I mean, you won't believe these stories.

You think it's a hoax. It's not a hoax. That is Stoffel.

On the outskirts of Kruger National Park, Low has a badger's den

under surveillance.

The photos from the first night, however,

reveal an unexpected visitor.

Leopard on the camera trap, at 20 to six.

20 to six - that's ten minutes after I placed the trap out.

It's not a good sign.

Leopards are one of the very few animals known to kill honey badgers.

Unfortunately there are no honey badgers on these shots,

which is...kind of strange.

I saw the tracks there with my own eyes.

Enoch said those tracks were relatively fresh.

Either this was never a den

and the honey badgers just kind of came through,

or the mother felt threatened

by the presence of the leopard there and decided to move the pup.

Perhaps the average WILD honey badger is smart enough

to know its limits.

The mother's vanishing act leaves Low back at square one.

Over at the rehab centre,

beekeeper Guy Stubbs is finally ready to pit his wits against

Stoffel and Hammy, with what he hopes is a badger-proof hive stand.

The important thing is to make sure

that you leave nothing lying around

that Stoffel can use as a tool to climb onto the stand.

With room for up to ten hives,

Guy's raised metal cage is quick to assemble.

If it works, it'll help keep the peace

between beekeepers and badgers.

OK. I think everything's ready now.

Jan, won't you release the badgers, please?

I feel that we've got a good chance.

I don't think they can get up here.

There's Stoffel trying. Look at that.

Looks a bit like a sloth.

He's feeling for a little hole or a grip,

like he did with the tree, but, er, he's not finding one.

They're too slippery.

This is how we stop them getting in.

Hammy has been watching from the sidelines,

and with Stoffel flagging...

..SHE moves in.

Can you see? Can you see her claws?

She seems to be getting a grip!

Oh, this is terrible!

No!

Oh, no, man!

And there, she's got it! She's got onto the hive!

Can you believe it?

She's actually pushed her way through,

and got to the honey that way.

That's her technique now.

She's pushing the hives all over the place,

and now she's blocked my view.

Well, this is unfortunately not even Stoffel.

It's even MORE embarrassing.

It's round one to Hammy.

And back to the drawing board for Guy.

I've tried everything. I've got a lot of respect for honey badgers.

Out in the bush, another day is drawing to a close.

And the night shift is beginning to stir.

For three weeks, Low and his field assistant, Becky,

have been searching for badgers beyond the camp -

without success.

But they're about to get lucky.

CLUNKING

-BECKY:

-Where is he?

They've staked out a spot with fresh signs of badger activity,

and it's paid off.

Two badgers - a mother and a large male pup -

have returned to dig up more food.

Most likely, they're after beetle grubs and scorpions.

The two badgers are soon joined by a THIRD.

It's a huge male -

and he's not interested in dinner.

He seems to sense that the female is ready to mate again,

after nearly two years of single parenting.

When a mother starts to entertain suitors,

it's the cue for her pup to move on and strike out on its own.

This is potentially a big night for him.

For Low and Becky, it's a rare and unexpected chance

to observe courtship, honey badger-style.

Did he SIT on her?!

THEY LAUGH

LOW GASPS

It's actually dragging her!

GROWLING

YELPING

LOUD YELPING

Oh! He's biting hard.

That really looks painful.

THEY LAUGH

-Are they IN a hole?!

-Yes. It's lovely, isn't it?

It's a badger love nest.

It's incredible that they'd do this so close to the car.

They really just don't care.

No, not even slightly.

Taking the hint, perhaps,

the younger male moves off to feed elsewhere...

..leaving the lovers to themselves.

But the newly independent badger

could hardly have picked a worse night to go solo.

He's dangerously isolated,

and his mother is too wrapped up to notice that the old enemy is back.

This time, the hyenas have turned up in force -

and the young male is out in the open.

Whatever food the badgers have sniffed out,

the hyenas now want to claim for themselves.

Retreat would seem the sensible option here.

Incredibly, though, the young male stands his ground,

as if daring the hyena to attack.

GROWLING

Meanwhile, the big male has at last cottoned on...

..and immediately squares up for a fight.

Mother seems happy to let the boys sort it out.

SNARLING AND WHIMPERING

-(Listen to that!

-You see, they're not backing off.)

The four hyenas are determined to muscle in,

but the outnumbered badgers

are equally determined to force them back.

GROWLING Look at that!

HYENAS LAUGH

If honey badgers are just bluffers,

then they're the bravest act in the African bush.

Some would say they're also the smartest.

Having been outwitted by Stoffel countless times,

Brian isn't taking any more chances.

If an 8,000-volt electric fence

doesn't stop the little mastermind...

..he doesn't know what will.

It's for everyone's benefit...

..including Brian's.

I've tried to make peace with him but he just wants to kill me!

Whenever he hears my voice, his tail's up, ready for attack.

Hello, Stoffel. Hello, my baby.

Yes, my buddy. Oh, Stoffel!

SNARLING Stoffel! Don't you forgive me?

Yeah, Stoffel, you're worse than a woman - you just don't forget.

Has Stoffel finally been contained,

or has Brian merely set the stage

for an even more ingenious escape?

Aside from keeping Stoffel out of trouble,

the business of saving WILD badgers is keeping Brian as busy as ever.

Three more animals trapped by farmers have now been patched up,

and are ready for release.

Brian can only hope that the badgers don't go

and create havoc for someone else.

He's looking to see if we're following him.

And he's got the cheek to growl on the way!

Och, you lovely thing.

One gone, two more to launch.

LOUD SNARLING

Brian knows that these badgers won't be the last he saves.

But he'll keep doing whatever it takes

to give these relentless little warriors a chance.

The honey badger to me is so brave and so courageous and so determined

that you can't help but love him.

'He's really got a place in my heart.'

After a month at the safari lodge

trying to track honey badgers in the wild, Low is stumped.

He's seen for himself that the honey badger's reputation for courage

and ferocity isn't just hype.

Yet as a scientist, he's still has

so many questions he wants to answer.

It's actually quite frustrating at the moment.

I see these animals literally every single night.

They come in, and cause chaos inside camp.

As soon as morning hits, they just disappear.

Their fearlessness, it seems,

is backed up by a more subtle quality -

a quality that enables it to get just what it wants,

and then vanish.

Perhaps intelligence is what really gives the honey badger its edge.

Its brain might even be bigger than its bite.

Honey badgers may have been regular visitors at the safari lodge,

but filming them was far from straightforward.

For the crew, alarm bells should have rung

when they were asked to pick up a new fridge on their way in.

Alas, not all of the delicate equipment being unloaded

will be going home in one piece.

Having dropped off the fridge, cameraman Robin Cox

and assistant producer Will Benson get straight to work

rigging cameras and infrared lights.

So we'll put one GoPro here, looking at the gate.

Do you think the 30-degree round the corner

-needs some frosts on it, or...?

-Yeah.

-OK.

The outdoor kitchen is frequently ransacked by badgers.

Maintenance manager Alfred points out

where the thieves have been breaking in.

-Check!

-That's claw marks!

-Yeah.

I mean, it looks like it's been cut with a saw.

So its claws must be incredibly sharp.

It's just literally sliced.

SHE LAUGHS

Do you like the honey badger?

Fridge-cam,

which hopefully will capture the badgers as they break in.

Anna, do you think she's going to damage the fridge?

So this GoPro's going to look at the gate.

This one gives us our main view of the room.

With lights plugged in and cameras set...

..there's just one last piece of kit to put in place.

So, um, we have one of these, Will.

I think really you ought to wear this

cos you haven't got any kids and I have.

My legs are shorter than yours.

It's a shorter reach for a honey badger to take a swipe.

I haven't worn one of these since school.

Robin is left on his own to wait quietly

If recent form is any guide,

it won't be long before the badgers are in the kitchen.

'Robin! They're in the lounge!'

You're joking.

The surprise raid on the lounge leaves Robin sidelined,

and the rest of the crew scrambling

to film what they can with the spare camera.

Is Will there?

The team have been outflanked,

and things are about to get worse.

I've had a time-lapse camera running out on the embers of the fire

on the boma down there.

They decided to just chew straight through the wire.

Sheared straight off.

Adding insult to injury,

one of the badgers films itself,

vandalising the spare camera.

Have the film crew, perhaps, bitten off more than they can chew?

In the morning, Robin and the camp staff

review the footage from the lounge.

Oh! You see that thing!

For a cameraman, it doesn't make happy viewing.

Came and found the camera.

Ah! Yeah! Oh!

Microphone.

He take, he put it there.

One severed camera cable, and a mangled microphone cover...

But on the plus side,

the team has its first close-up of a wild honey badger.

Night two, and the team are staking out the rubbish dump.

There are plenty of leftovers here to tempt the badgers.

Before he knows it,

Robin has badgers in his sights, and he's finally rolling on some action.

But the badgers don't seem to like being in the spotlight.

What's going on?

(Look, the badgers have just knocked the light over.

(Both their tails are up.

(They're obviously really excited smashing up our kit!)

They're having a whale of a time, at our expense.

As soon as the hooligans clear off,

Robin and Will venture out to assess the damage.

-Right, let's call it a night.

-Yeah.

It's been a rough night for the lights,

and there's more bad news to come.

I've just found one of our infrared GoPros in pieces,

-strewn over about 5m.

-You're joking.

They've given it a right going-over.

I mean, it's seriously tough plastic, this.

I don't think that's going to work again.

Tooth's gone right in there,

and another one at the top.

Number two GoPro down.

It'll be days before Robin gets

the spare parts he needs to fix the lights.

They just seem to be out to wreck our gear at the moment.

And it looks like Will might need a sewing kit.

They've chewed a massive great hole in the side of our filming hide.

I think, er, honey badgers just like destroying stuff.

To add to the crew's problems,

15 noisy tourists are now descending on the lodge.

It's been hard enough trying to film badgers when it's quiet.

And on night three,

hopes that the visitors might turn in early are going up in smoke.

It's coming up to ten o'clock now.

There's still quite a lot of activity around the camp.

Guests are still up, having drinks and talking round the fire.

There's no sign of them disappearing off to bed.

CHATTING AND LAUGHTER

But ignoring all the noise,

the badgers are once again going to teach the film crew a lesson.

Never mind the party, there's a pork chop to be pinched!

Look, look! Look, look, look!

In plain sight of the guests, the brazen badgers help themselves...

..and leave the film crew wondering if their whole tip-toeing approach

has been utterly pointless.

These guys really don't care.

They don't mind if we're talking, making a lot of noise,

banging about... These guys really aren't bothered.

For once the badgers lay off the cameras,

and stick to the business of looting.

But tonight they're not just nicking food.

They're also stealing a few hearts.

It's cute. I love the honey badger.